How Jigger Cruz transforms oil into bold abstract art

It was the international exposure he received that helped to cement his reputation locally, turning him into something of a wunderkind in the Philippine contemporary art scene. “One of my only buyers from my very first shows at Blanc Gallery was Norman Crisologo,” he says. The noted collector and curator of Hail Holy Eyes, his show at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila | The M Museum somehow got me and my work as an artist. I even thought at first, ‘is he gago [stupid]?’ Why is he buying my work? Is he asking to be made a fool of?”

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But Crisologo saw complexities of meaning in the paintings and believed in the young painter’s potential. Over the years, he continued to buy Cruz’s work, and the two became friends in the process. In 2012, when an artist dropped out of a contemporary Philippine art exhibition, Crisologo and Migs Rosales, another respected curator and art consultant, were putting together Prima Marella gallery in Milan, Cruz was allowed to step in and show his work to an international audience, to significant acclaim. By this time, he had developed the distinctive signature abstract language and impasto technique he has become known for: thick gobs of oil paint spattered, pulled into shapes, drizzled, strung like gum, left to drip past the frame, against not a blank canvas, but one that he had previously painted with a classical landscape, or figures, or sometimes even just a shoe, mostly in dark or muted tones. Massively scaled, there is a tactile quality to his works. His version of Jackson Pollock’s action painting is even more muscular. He rarely applies the paint with the brush; instead, he manipulates the oil paint, squeezing it out of the tubes into mounds on a surface, then grabbing fistfuls of pure colour, throwing them onto the canvas, and taking it from there, forming impasto swabs. For finer loops and coils, he uses an icing bag, fills it with paint, and applies it in the same way a pastry chef would decorate a cake.

“I’m obsessed with oil as a medium,” he confesses. “It’s almost like a fetish. I love the smell. I love the character.” In his work, he constantly explores the limits of oil, as he is essentially transforming it into sculpture by manipulating, forming and shaping it. 

Oil, the most classical of mediums, is a form of rebellion for Cruz, who has always refused neat categorisations when it comes to his art. “Usually when you think of oil paintings, it’s really the classical style that comes to mind,” he explains. “I’m still a Romantic. I love Renaissance painting, such as the Mona Lisa. But I want to experiment and go beyond the limitations of oil. You see, oil is sacred. It’s holy for me. Something precious. For me, spiritually, I’m in love with oil, with the organic quality of its pigment.” And there’s its sculptural potential. “I guess I’m a purist in a way.”

Yet, for all his reverence for the medium, that sense of rebellion comes through. Some critics say he vandalises art, even if it’s his own canvases he defaces. But for Cruz, it’s not vandalism per se; it’s more an experiment in deconstruction and an interrogation of materiality. In this, he is greatly influenced by philosophy, particularly that of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida. In his main studio (he has three), around the corner from the Parañaque home he shares with his partner of nine years, Aira Hernandez, and their two young daughters, Matissa and Mahliya, an antique table holds several wooden statues of heads that Cruz has taken apart, fused back together, dabbed with paint and wax, turning them into three-dimensional abstractions reminiscent of Francis Picabia and Francis Bacon. The heads, he says, were rejects purchased from woodcarvers in Paete. “I respect antiques; I would never try to ‘deconstruct’ them. Instead, I use new pieces.”

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One could perhaps say that Cruz is simultaneously a vandal and a vassal, a contrarian and a conundrum. He doesn’t deny the Western influences in his art; traditional representation often informs the base of his paintings. In fact, he pores over art books when preparing to work on a new painting and pays homage to the Masters. The religious iconography, such as images of saints, that appears in the background of much of his work is shaped as much by the European art tradition as it is by his own Catholic upbringing, with its own customs and rituals peculiar to the Philippines. 

While the abstraction that characterises his work was crystallised during his short stint in the US where, in between odd jobs, he visited galleries and studios, coming into contact with the work of young artists such as Katherine Bernhardt and Trudy Benson with nascent careers like himself, and beginning to understand the possibilities of abstract art, the frenetic energy he brings to his work reflects the colours and chaos of the Malabon district he grew up in. “The abstraction that I do comes from my childhood, from my neighbourhood in Malabon,” he muses. “It was a typical Philippine baroque environment, you know, where it’s mix and match, using all colours that you can combine. It’s chaos, but for me, I find it more beautiful. It’s real, it’s honest, the streets, the noise, the laundry lines… There was no order.”

In the same Malabon neighbourhood, another celebrated Filipino contemporary artist, Ronald Ventura, would give art classes on Sundays to the younger Cruz. From Ventura, he learnt figurative art, a foundational education, he says, that’s of great significance to his practice. “Abstraction cannot function without knowing basic figuration. It’s important for the layers in my work.”

Cruz then went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Far Eastern University (FEU) in 2007. Although he always knew that he wanted to be an artist, he considered at first going into advertising or working as a graphic designer, because “from where I come from, being a full-time artist was not an advisable career. You’ll always be hungry.” But, as it turned out, he was colour-blind, which complicated any aspirations of working in graphic design. 

He began working in the studio of Manuel Ocampo, who took him under his wing. The iconoclastic Ocampo’s deeply intellectual and oftentimes wryly subversive approach to his art was eye-opening for Cruz. The young mentee was encouraged to read widely and visit as many galleries and museums as possible, especially during those formative six months in the US, his first trip outside the country, which he embarked on with Ocampo’s blessing after his then-fiancée had left him.

Cruz considers Ocampo a close friend today; they have, in fact, collaborated on a limited series of artworks. Having had both Ventura and Ocampo as mentors is something Cruz values immensely; he knows how fortunate he is.

His own approach to his art has evolved. Where once a sense of horror vacui might have pervaded his paintings—although it’s not so much a fear of emptiness that leads Cruz to paint over the canvas’s entire surface and beyond but arguably a reflection of his own sense of chaos and curiosity—today his visual language seems to be shifting from maximalist to minimalist. “Maybe it’s maturity.”

Previously, he would start working on a painting by making studies and preparing a structural plan. “Now, I start spontaneously.  I’m freer, gestural. Intuitive. That’s my practice. I don’t think about it so much, about what I’m trying to do. I do it.” Music—the ambient sounds he creates on his sound deck—puts him in a sort of trance, a state of euphoria that stimulates his creative energies.

He doesn’t like to dwell much on the meaning of his artworks, but the titles he gives them—“they’re really just random words”—invite intrigue, perplexity, and contemplation. “I’m just a painter, not a storyteller. The narrative is the narrative you, the viewer, give it. It depends on you, how you look at it. But even if the title is completely random, it makes sense to me.”

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